British indie rock band Wild Beasts were formed in 2002 in the north western England town of Kendal, by Queen Katherine School students Hayden Thorpe (vocals) and Ben Little (guitar). They originally performed under the name of Fauve, the French term for "wild beast". In January 2004, schoolmate Chris Talbot (drummer) joined, and they changed the band's name to Wild Beasts. The following year another student, Tom Fleming (bass), became a full time member of the band. After A-levels, they all decamped to Leeds, where three of them enrolled at the city's university whilst Little worked at odd jobs.

After signing with Domino Records in February 2007 Wild Beasts released their debut album Limbo, Panto the following year. The band's sophomore release Two Dancers was widely acclaimed and The Fly magazine voted it as their Best Album of 2009. This take on love and its collateral damage is the opening track from their third long player, Smother, which was released on May 9, 2011.

Tom Fleming told the story of the song in an interview with Drowned in Sound: "This began life as a much fuller arrangement, one that was a sort of amalgamation of all the things that might be called our signifiers. Naturally, upon realising this, we sickened ourselves and set about changing it. This was really built in the studio from start to finish, the only things kept from the first tentative version being Hayden's original melody and the chord sequence. My part is one, unchanging chord."